A Small But Important Victory for Taxpayers

Regular readers know I’m not a Trumpie. Some of his policies are terrible (protectionism), while others are irresponsible (punting on entitlements) or misguided (new tax loopholes).

But I have to give credit where credit is due.

Unlike every other Republican president over the past six decades – including the great Ronald Reagan – Donald Trump successfully eliminated subsidies for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

This is the feel-good story of 2025.

Here are some excerpts from a Washington Post report by Scott Nover.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting said it will close following Congress’s decision to strip its current funding and foreclose on future appropriations. CPB…is a nonprofit set up to dole out congressionally appropriated funds to NPR, PBS, and public radio and TV stations around the United States. President Donald Trump launched a successful campaign to claw back the $1.1 billion allocated for the organization for the next two years, a measure he signed into law last month. …The closure was announced one day after the Senate Appropriations Committee released a bill that would zero out funding for CPB.

The “claw back” mentioned above refers to the rescission bill, which was another victory for taxpayers.

And Republicans (for once) were smart. Instead of simply making cuts that easily could be reversed in the future, they actually got rid of the entire bureaucracy.

The Post then quotes officials from NPR and PBS, who are predictably disappointed they can no longer be moochers.

Katherine Maher, CEO of NPR, wrote in a statement. “We will continue to respond to this crisis by stepping up to support locally owned, nonprofit public radio stations and local journalism across the country…” PBS also suggested it would step up to fill the void. “As this remarkable institution winds down, PBS is committed to building on CPB’s legacy and maintaining our service to the American people for years to come,” a spokesperson said.

For what it’s worth, NPR and PBS will continue for the simple reason that they never needed handouts to begin with. Those radio and TV stations can (indeed, they already do) raise money privately.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that I’m sure politicians in some blue states will pillage their taxpayers to compensate for the loss of federal funds.

But at least the problem is then localized rather than national.

I’ll close with the observation that this victory is heartwarming, but also largely irrelevant. America is sleep-walking toward a fiscal crisis because of entitlement programs that are multi-trillion dollar burdens on the U.S. economy. Donald Trump has cured a hangnail, but he’s ignoring the cancer that will kill the patient.